Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent steps he has taken to promote tax simplification.

The government is committed to having a tax system that is simple to understand and easy to comply with. At Budget the government took a number of practical steps to simplify the tax rules for businesses and charities which included:

• Extending the option of using mileage rates to property businesses,
• Ending receipt checking on subsistence costs and
• Simplifying the Gift Aid donor benefits rules for charities.

These measures build on the action taken by the government since 2010 to simplify the tax system including:

• Establishing the Office of Tax Simplification and then putting it on a permanent, statutory basis
• Implementing around half of the OTS’s recommendations since 2010.